Ah, the story of A Boy And His Dog, what could be more wonderful? Why, making the dog a sports prodigy, of course!

Twelve-year-old Josh Framm (Kevin Zegers) is having to deal with moving to a new town, while mourning the death of his father. He meets Buddy, a golden retriever who has managed to escape his abusive owner, an alcoholic clown named Norman Snively. The pair become friends and eventually, Josh's mother allows the dog to stay. In the process, Josh discovers that Buddy can play basketball, and the pair end up joining the basketball team, with Buddy as the team's mascot. During a televised game, Snively sees Buddy's talent on the court and manages to get him back from the Framms. Josh, however, manages to rescue the dog, and the pair of them get back to the school, just in time for Buddy to win the game, by means of the Animal Athlete Loophole.

The Air Bud series began in 1997, when Air Bud premiered in theaters. It was an huge success and has spawned four direct sequels and a spin-off franchise in the form of the Air Buddies movies, which focus on Bud's puppies.

The Air Bud films each feature Buddy playing a different sport, and follow roughly the same pattern as the original movie: Buddy shows skill at a sport, he is then kidnapped because of his skill at said sport, his family rescues him, and he returns just in time to win the final match for his team.

The Air Buddies films focus on Buddy's puppies and are more family-oriented. These films have different foci and genres.

In World Pup, Buddy and his mate Molly have a set of puppies, who inherit his sports abilities. They receive a Plot-Relevant Age-Up for Seventh Inning Fetch, but are nowhere to be seen Spikes Back. Then, Air Buddies rolls around, and they're puppies again. Or it's a brand new set of puppies; it's never really clear.

The Dog Bites Back: Buddy/Old Blue ends up doing this to his former owner, literally, in the climax. Bonus points for the fact that, from the initial set up, it makes it seem as though Buddy was actually going to return to his original owner over Josh before he attacks the Owner and shreds up his newspaper.

Not Allowed to Grow Up: Averted, Buddy watches as Josh grows up and moves to college in Seventh Inning Fetch, in which his younger sister Andrea, takes center stage. And by the time Air Buddies rolls around, baby Noah has grown up enough to star.

Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Between World Pup and Seventh Inning Fetch, Buddy's kids grow from puppies to adult dogs, but considering that they're dogs and age faster than humans, this is a rare justified example.

Reality Ensues: Golden Receiver shows what a bad idea it is for a dog to play football when Buddy gets tackled.

Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Subtly played in the first film: Whenever the newspaper arrives, Buddy always wakes up early, retrieves the newspaper, and attempts to bury it. The audience knows the reason behind this is because he fears them because his old owner often beat him with it, but the family thought it was simply mischief. It wasn't until the owner fought for the dog that he ended up revealing why.

Buddy also reacts with a bark to loud noises, as evidenced by the Judge using his paliff mallet, causing the dog to bark in response, implying that Buddy is also deeply afraid of loud thumps, presumably because of his former owner's aforementioned abuse.

You're Not My Father: In Golden Receiver, Josh misses his dad so much that he can't accept his mom's new boyfriend. After a talk with his coach, Josh is able to see that nothing will stop him from loving his father.

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